It was very dark in the window-recess, shut off from the room by the heavy blue curtains which fell to the floor in thick folds. The room itself was not in complete darkness, for the fire, built up by Chloe with assumed extravagance before she went to bed, had burned down to a steady red glow, now and then illumined by a dancing gleam of light as a tiny flame of gas sputtered from some specially charged coal; and as Anstice peeped cautiously through a carefully arranged chink in the curtains he could see the pretty room with fair distinctness. The chairs were standing about with the peculiarly uncanny effect known to all who enter a room after it has been finally deserted for the night--an effect as of waiting for some ghostly visitors to fill their pathetic emptiness and hold high revel or stately converse in the place lately peopled by mere human beings.
On a little table by the fire stood a chess-board, the old carved red and white pieces standing on it in jumbled disarray; for Chloe and her husband, both inveterate chess-lovers, had begun a game which they were unable, through lack of time, to finish; and as his eyes fell on the board Anstice had a queer fancy that if he and Major Carstairs were not present two ghostly chess-players would issue softly from the shadows and rearrange the pieces for another and perhaps more strenuously-contested duel.
As the fantastic thought crossed his mind Anstice sat up decisively, telling himself he was growing imaginative; and Major Carstairs turned to him with a whispered word.
"Getting fidgety, eh? I know the feeling--used to get it when I was sitting in a straw hut in the marshes waiting for the duck to appear----"
He broke off suddenly; for a sound had shattered the silence; but though he and Anstice pulled themselves together in readiness for anything which might happen, both realized at the same moment that it was only the whirr of the grandfather clock which always prefaced the striking of the hour; and in another second the hour itself struck, with one deep, sonorous note which reverberated through the quiet room.
"One o'clock, and no result," Major Carstairs stretched himself cautiously. "How long is the sitting to continue, eh? It's all right for me, but I'm afraid if you have a heavy day's work in prospect----"
"Oh, I don't mind," said Anstice indifferently. "I'm used to having my sleep cut short--one's patients seem to think one can exist quite comfortably without it, though they make a tremendous fuss if they lose a night's sleep for any reason!"